HLAS

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has announced that more than 10,000 farmers across England have applied for the improved Sustainable Farming Incentive since it opened for applications in September. The Sustainable Farming Incentive provides financial help to farmers for taking actions that support food production, farm productivity and resilience, while protecting and enhancing the environment. Based on feedback received from farmers, the Incentive has been expanded and improved to include around 50 new actions that farmers can be paid for. The application process has also been made more straightforward and farmers have more flexibility now to [...]

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) are warning that fraudsters could focus on Self Assessment taxpayers. With the tax return filing deadline having just passed at the end of January, an email, phone call or text message that offers a tax rebate may appear more believable than usual. HMRC say that they have responded to 207,800 referrals in the year to January, with more than 79,000 relating to fake tax rebates. The total number of referrals has increased by 14% over the previous year, suggesting fraudsters are increasing their efforts. Scammers are looking to get personal details that they can sell [...]

All major housing developments in England are now required to deliver at least a 10% benefit for nature. This Biodiversity Net Gain requirement, which was introduced in the Environment Act, is now a legal requirement for all new planning applications. Biodiversity Net Gain means that a development needs to avoid harming nature, or if that is unavoidable, new habitats need to be created or existing ones enhanced so that the net result is more nature after a development than before. The gain is preferably to be made within the new site itself, but the requirements can also be satisfied by [...]

A crime survey carried out by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) shows a 50% increase in levels of violence and abuse towards shop workers. During 2022/23 there were 1,300 incidents a day compared with 870 a day in the previous year. The abuse includes racial abuse, sexual harassment, physical assault and threats with weapons, and is on a par with the levels of abuse retail workers experienced during the pandemic when safety measures frustrated many. Theft costs have increased to £1.8 billion from £953 million the year before, with 45,000 incidents a day. These increases are all despite retailers investing [...]

The Valuation Office Agency (VOA) is contacting the owners of some self-catering holiday lets. The lets in question are ones that are currently being assessed for business rates. The VOA are looking for additional information about the income and expenditure of these properties. This will assist in calculating the rateable value of the property. This enquiry follows an exercise undertaken by the VOA last year to contact self-catering holiday let owners. The information requested at that time enabled the VOA to decide whether the properties should be assessed for business rates or Council Tax. The rateable values of self-catering holiday [...]

Official figures were released last week showing that inflation remains at 4% in the year to January. Energy prices have increased due to the new energy price cap, and the price for second-hand cars also rose by 1.5%. However, food prices fell for the first time in two years by 0.4%. Discounts offered by retailers for furniture and household goods in the January sales have also exerted a downward push on inflation. Of course, inflation staying flat does not mean that prices are not increasing. A 4% inflation rate means that prices are still going up at double the rate [...]

The Institute of Customer Service published its latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) figures for January 2024. The Index has fallen by 1.7 points since last January to 76.0 (out of 100) - https://www.instituteofcustomerservice.com/research-insight/ukcsi/ Each of the 13 UKCSI sectors showed lower customer satisfaction than a year ago, with Utilities, Transport, Insurance and Service declining by more than 2 points. The highest rated organisations are Ocado (85.7), first direct (85.3) and John Lewis (85.1). Looking at an index update like this can provide a good opportunity to reflect on the customer satisfaction of your own customers. Good customer service is [...]

The Office of National Statistics released official figures last week showing the UK is now officially in recession. Gross domestic product (GDP) for the October to December 2023 quarter dropped by 0.3%. This followed a fall in the July to September 2023 quarter of 0.1%. A fall in GDP in two or more consecutive quarters constitutes a recession. Experts will generally assess the health of an economy on a number of factors, rather than solely look at the headline GDP rates. However, the “recession” word quickly takes hold in news headlines and brings apprehension and uncertainty with it. While it [...]

The UK government has announced the signing of six new contracts that will allow suppliers to connect businesses and homes in hard-to-reach areas to lightning-fast full fibre internet. Rural communities in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire, Sussex, Kent, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Milton Keynes, Nottinghamshire, and West Lincolnshire are the subject of these contracts. It is expected that some 236,000 premises will benefit from the uprated connections with the first being connected in early 2025. For any business using the internet, speed and reliability make a big difference to productivity. Full fibre can deliver internet speeds of up to 1,000 megabits (or [...]

The Digital Economy Act 2017 gave the government data sharing powers that allow it to combat fraud committed against the public sector. A statutory review, which was published last week, shows that taxpayers have been saved £137 million because of these data sharing powers. The review showed that the Act has enabled more than 100 data sharing pilots across both local authorities and governments or agencies. The savings were categorised as £99.5 million from identifying Covid-19 loan scheme fraud, £14.9 million from fraud identified in council tax and housing benefit systems, £5.1 million from identifying companies that were fraudulently misstating [...]